This isn’t the most personal way to tell you all about this – but it allows us to announce it one time . . .

We’re still adjusting ourselves . . .

You know how this is going to end but being who I am I have to tell you the entire story. All details . . . those relevant . . . and not . . . have to be included.

Here is how it happened . . .

It started after Mom and I dropped my sweet little nephew D off at the airport so he could fly back to Fairbanks to be with his wife, daughter and grandchildren.

(Don’t spend too much time trying to figure that one out.)

Mom and I were supposed to go look at fabric for pillows.

We wound up here instead.

Not the police station! . . . the other place. (Although it probably would have been a pretty good story if we had wound up at the police station.)

I’ve wanted another dog for a while now. . . so we stopped at Animal Control so I could do some research. Who stops at an animal shelter to do research? Only people who really want to bring home an animal that’s who.

We did, however, manage to leave empty-handed . . .

Only because it was time to retrieve kidlets from the government institution at which they are receiving their education . . .

and not before an “I’m in the process of being adopted” sign was posted on a certain kennel.

I picked up the kids and told them I had the biggest surprise of their lives for them after Roo’s piano lesson . . . and after chores were done.

I’ve never seen chores get done so fast.

While Roo was finishing her lesson I did call the man whose salary pays the mortgage on this house to run the whole thing by him. Our conversation went like this:

Me: “Hi, honey . . . how would you feel if there were a new member of the family when you got home from work today?”

Husband (nearly jumping through the phone – and not with joy): “Did you get another dog?!!!!?!?”

If I ever want to rile up my husband I just have to tell him we I have adopted another dog.

This could . . . maybe . . . possibly . . . have something to do with my last visit to Animal Control. I had to go look at an owner surrendered dog a friend told us about. I brought her home because she was just too good a dog to leave at the pound. Never mind the fact that we already had two canine companions and I was still grieving the loss of our third. I promised my husband I would find the dog a new home. That was in 2001. She still lives with us.

After the piano lesson Grammie, the kids and I piled in the car and went back to Animal Control.

And I lied to my children.

“I just need to go in this place and take some pictures for a project and if you two are REALLY, REALLY good I’ll let you come in and look at the animals before we get your surprise.”

Surprises sometimes require lying. It’s one of those shades of gray areas that make parenting a little tricky.

“We tell the truth, honey, except when it suits Mamma.”

I went in, filled out the paperwork and paid the fees.

And took a few pictures so I wasn’t being entirely dishonest.

And then let the kids come in as promised.

They checked out this . . .

and this . . .

and this . . .

This last picture is of a gerbil. G made me take the picture. He thought it was a hamster. It’s one of his obsessions.

I apologize for the poor photo quality. Nocturnal creatures generally don’t book photo shoots that early in the evening.

We started to cruise the dog area but it was entirely too noisy for Roo.

“Let’s check out the cattery. It’s quieter in there,” says I.

The children looked.

The children admired.

G talked to a cat who talked back.

Roo asked, for the 3,452nd time since she was four, “When can we have a cat?”

“Maybe they will let you hold one,” said I.

The kennel tech freed a cat from her cage.

It just happened to be the one for which I had spent the previous half-hour filling out paperwork.

The kids were careful and serious.

They pet the cat gently.

Roo asked, for the 3,453rd time, “When can we have a cat?”

“What if we take this one home?” asked I.

“Really?”

She didn’t believe me.

“Yes. What if we take this one home?”

Happy, happy boy.

Roo looked at Grammie to confirm that I was indeed telling the truth. She was so shocked she forgot to jump around and do cartwheels. I’ve never seen her so surprised she actually quit moving.

Even while we waited for the tech to put the cat in the box and bring her out to us Roo just stood in the lobby with a silly smile on her face repeating, over and over and over, “I can’t believe we got a cat.”

G smiled and giggled a lot.

The cat has adjusted well to her new abode. She ran around investigating everything immediately after being sprung from the box in which she came home. There was no hiding under the bed for this little one.

She did have a few stressful moments.

They might have had something to do with this . . .

Those two will need to work on their relationship. Burton thinks we brought her home a new playmate. The new playmate isn’t so interested in playing.

For the record, this was ok’d by Grammie who is allergic and does spend a lot of time at our house.

So now we have a cat.

And Riley no longer has to say to everyone, “When Uncle J and Grammie die then I can have a cat.” (If we had known then what we know now she could have added Uncle D’s name to that list.)

All of our cat-allergic relatives are very much alive.

We now keep allergy meds at the house.

And we have a cat who has no name . . . because we couldn’t stick with Jessie and can’t decide what to call her. So she gets called Cat a lot.